Do you have a $2 coin in your pocket? That's probably about what it would cost you for a year added to your tax.

I know it's really painful to let go of that $2, I mean you really needed that, but when people are in need, when we need to take steps to break cycles of poverty, when we need to try and improve the education of our collective society, we sometimes have to make these drastic sacrifices.

Do you have a $2 coin in your pocket? That's probably about what it would cost you for a year added to your tax.

I know it's really painful to let go of that $2, I mean you really needed that, but when people are in need, when we need to take steps to break cycles of poverty, when we need to try and improve the education of our collective society, we sometimes have to make these drastic sacrifices.

Poverty? I laugh every time I hear this word being thrown around in NZ. Been living here for 5 years and never seen it.

sleemanj: "I never had such problem, therefore your problem must be of your own doing." is a pretty typical response from people when it comes to socio-economic issues, people have neither the ability nor desire to see the situation from the other side.

But even if we for the sake of argument just say "ok, it's the parents fault", that solves nothing, sure you can teach a man to fish, but if he dies of starvation while you're doing it then YOU have failed miserably, not them.

If providing funded meals in schools means children are better educated, and healthier, then DO IT. No mucking around, no hand wringing, or finger pointing, just do it, why is it even a question.

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As for the price, we can't afford not to. I think Campbell Live costed it at $4m a year... can anyone confirm? If so, that's peanuts. That's one dollar each person PER YEAR.

Labour priced it at around $21m I think - but even then we're talking about less than the price of a coffee per person per year at the outside.

This shouldn't even be a discussion, we should just get on and do what all civilised countries do - feed our kids.

mxpress: If providing funded meals in schools means children are better educated, and healthier, then DO IT. ?No mucking around, no hand wringing, or finger pointing, just do it, why is it even a question.

then DO IT?

Yes its easy to say lets provide meals, and in a perfect world we probably should. But lets be realistic. Where is the money going to come from? How much more debt must NZ spiral into? NZ is already borrowing over +$200million per week, and that borrowed money is already funding free schools/healthcare etc .. We just can't afford it. These parents should be held accountable for being irresponsible parents.

The story said it'd take only $4 million per year to feed all decile 1-4 schools nation wide. In the grand scheme of things that is nothing. Kids can already has 2.2million for this year, surely this is where public / private should be working together. I.e. Fonterra could donate the milk etc.

"give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime"

We didn't have much growing up but there was always a good lunch to be had, for the price of some junk food like was shown (sugar loaded soft drink and burger rings) you could buy fruit, bread, and some spreads.

Lurch: "give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime"

We didn't have much growing up but there was always a good lunch to be had, for the price of some junk food like was shown (sugar loaded soft drink and burger rings) you could buy fruit, bread, and some spreads.

Problem I think is the parents not knowing any better or how to.

In this instance I think we need to do both. We need to feed the kids today and help the parents so they can better manage in future.

My mum raised me on the DPB, while studying extramurally at university for the first of her two degrees, and saving every spare cent for a deposit to buy a house (no small feat in the late 70's/early 80's).

My clothes were all either home sewn by her, xmas presents or hand me downs from friends/church. Things like lollies were a "few times a year" special treat. She didn't smoke, didn't drink, didn't take drugs, didn't buy fancy clothes, didn't even own a TV until we got a 14" B&W set in the mid 80's. Ditto a car, first got a car when I was around 4-5, and it was an anicent rusty death trap Skoda. We were POOR. Yet we still ate good healthy food. My mum had a huge vege patch, brought boring but cheap basic staples (lots of lentils, crap like that, lots of home baking etc).

Being poor is not an excuse for not feeding your kids. How many of the parents of those decile 1 kids smoke, drink, have cars, have tv's, have sky, have playstations, have brand name clothes? My kids used to go to a decile 3 school, and they had the same problem with kids not being fed, or fed inapprorpriate food. Yet on school gala day the parents of those same kids would turn up in the V8 Commodore/Falcon, wearing flash NBA/Fubu/Starter/ clothing, etc etc. There might be some genuine cases, but most of the so called child poverty is greedy selfish parents, wanting luxuries for themselves at the expense of their kids diets.

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BraaiGuy: Poverty? I laugh every time I hear this word being thrown around in NZ. Been living here for 5 years and never seen it.

The term is relative.

Just because in another country poverty means living in a shanty town where you're doing well if you have a tin shack instead of a cardboard box, it does not mean that our poor are not "below the poverty line" in New Zealand.

As the average standard of living increases, the level below which we define as poverty also increases. This is desirable, otherwise if left to continually drift apart the leap between poverty as you would describe it, and the "average" standard of living in our society, just becomes ever more insurmountable.

sleemanj: "I never had such problem, therefore your problem must be of your own doing." is a pretty typical response from people when it comes to socio-economic issues, people have neither the ability nor desire to see the situation from the other side.

But even if we for the sake of argument just say "ok, it's the parents fault", that solves nothing, sure you can teach a man to fish, but if he dies of starvation while you're doing it then YOU have failed miserably, not them.

If providing funded meals in schools means children are better educated, and healthier, then DO IT. No mucking around, no hand wringing, or finger pointing, just do it, why is it even a question.

I accept your position on this, and in no way am I saying that poverty does not exist. I was pointing out that the article did not look at what the parents were doing for there children and there statement that putting the ambulance at the top of the cliff was incorrect. If you were making sure that the ambulance was at the top of the cliff you would ensure that parents knew how to feed their children properly (on a budget) and they were properly funded.

Its not the schools job to feed kids. They're already tasked with far far more raising of children than they should have to without adding more to their burden. What is it that parents are responsible for these days then?? It seems less and less. It seems we're more concerned with the rights of people to do what they want to do (I want to have more children than I can afford and it's my right) and less concerned with the responsibility that comes from taking action upon ones rights.

I simply cannot understand how parents cannot afford lunch for their children.

Surely if you draw up a simple budget - even on minimum wage - and remove, in order, food, shelter, etc... then food is always priority number one. Without it you aren't able to do anything else. Literally. You die without sustenance so rent and car payments do not matter more than food.

This is a case of adults not being able to budget and lacking responsibility; nothing more. The government has no responsibility to right this. If anything, the parents need assessment by the child protective services department. That is all the government has any responsibility to do.